History

Indian economic growth is being surpassed by wealth accumulation. Again.

As long as private wealth grows faster than income, workers will remain excluded from any notion of shared prosperity. Rishabh Kumar digs up the records as far as possible to build wealth-income ratios for India and investigate their relationship to the structure of national savings.

Wealth-income ratios are rising everywhere. Put simply, the accumulation of wealth is outpacing economic growth. This is true in America, Europe […]

The revised Afghanistan criminal code: an end for Bacha Bazi?

The war in Afghanistan has led to a resurgence in the practice of bacha bazi, or ‘boy play’ in Afghanistan. Sayed Jalal Shajjan discusses the inefficacy of allied and local forces in stamping out this abusive practice, as well as their complicity in its existence today.

Since the fall of Taliban regime in 2001, the international community supported the Afghan Government in […]

Politics and the philosophy of apology

When states and governments are called upon to apologise for historic wrongs including episodes of colonial violence, a series of philosophical questions spring up. Suyash Saxena considers some of these questions and their implications.

Recently the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, had appealed to the British government to tender an official apology for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. More than a thousand […]

January 15th, 2018|Featured, History|Comments Off on Politics and the philosophy of apology|

“It can be easier to talk about horrendous things to an outsider rather than to someone you’re going to see every day” – Professor Lucy Chester

Preceding her lecture ‘The Radcliffe Boundary Commission and the Geographical Imagination of Pakistan’ in October, Professor Lucy Chester spoke to Rebecca Bowers about her research on the enduring legacy of partition, and what can be learned from it today.

Your publication Borders and Conflict in South Asia: The Radcliffe Boundary Commission and the Partition of Punjab has been described as […]

January 4th, 2018|Featured, History, Interviews|Comments Off on “It can be easier to talk about horrendous things to an outsider rather than to someone you’re going to see every day” – Professor Lucy Chester|

“The Partition Museum is our tribute to the resilience and courage those who migrated” – Lady Kishwar Desai

Lady Kishwar Desai opens up about how started the Partition Museum in Amritsar and her vision for the project, which will include an archive, centres in other locations and a publication by the end of the next year. Drawing on her experience of setting up the Museum as well as her parents’ migration to India, she tells Mahima A. Jain that most of those who witnessed the […]

December 19th, 2017|Featured, History, Human Rights, Interviews|Comments Off on “The Partition Museum is our tribute to the resilience and courage those who migrated” – Lady Kishwar Desai|

Ankur Datta, a social anthropologist, draws on his doctoral thesis to chart the experiences of Kashmiri Pandits who migrated from the Kashmir Valley in 1990. His book addresses themes of violence and victimhood in the context of forced migration. Mark Mistry finds Datta’s testimony on Kashmiri Pandits’ displacement compelling, yet is left frustrated by the missed opportunity to delve […]

“Think about the silences more deeply. Look for what is missing” – Dr Sumita Mukherjee

Following her lecture ‘Indian Responses to British Women’s Social Activism in the Interwar Period’, organised by the LSE Library, Dr Sumita Mukherjee discusses her archival research with Rebecca Bowers, and the legacies of Anglo-Indian interactions vis-à-vis the women’s movement and beyond in India today.

RB: You briefly mentioned how in discussing birth control debates we can see the ways in which Indian women […]

December 4th, 2017|Featured, Gender, History, Interviews|Comments Off on “Think about the silences more deeply. Look for what is missing” – Dr Sumita Mukherjee|

Mumbai’s Sassoon Docks, a reflection of changing times

In this photo essay, Rohit Sinha and Aadi Rungta trace the economic importance of Sassoon Docks, one of Mumbai’s oldest and largest wholesale fish market. The docks are a monument to Mumbai’s mercantile past as well as its thriving fishing economy.

A visit to the docks is almost always overwhelming. The stench of fishes extends for miles; the sight colourful boats and their flags, competing with […]

Commonwealth in the time of Brexit

The idea that the Commonwealth can serve the interests of both India and Britain has not just survived in the face of many ups and downs, but has come back to the fore. The question today, then, is no longer about whether India and Britain should resurrect the Commonwealth, but how writes C. Raja Mohan.

The future of FATA: when reforms come knocking

With the announcement of the FATA reforms, the time for change in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) may have finally come. Samra Anwar and Abdur Rehman Cheema give a lowdown on why democratic processes have taken so long to arrive and the challenges ahead.

With Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi re-initiating the process of mainstreaming Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the region is again in the limelight. Unlike his predecessors, Abbasi seems to be serious on the […]